2027 HSA Contribution Limits
The 2027 Health Savings Account amounts, in full: what you may contribute at each coverage type, the age-55 addition, and the deductible and out-of-pocket limits a plan must meet to be an HDHP at all. Every 2027 figure below is already published law.
Why the HSA numbers arrive a year early when nothing else does. Most 2027 figures do not exist yet — the IRS publishes retirement-plan limits around November 2026 and SSA announces the COLA in October. HSAs are the exception because §223(g) runs on a different clock: it indexes on a twelve-month window ending 31 March and then requires publication "no later than June 1 of the calendar year preceding the calendar year for which the adjustment is being made." So the HSA family is settled in May while everything else is still being projected. That is also why the HSA rows on our 2027 contribution-limits dataset are the only green ones on a page of amber.
2027 vs 2026 — every HSA and HDHP amount
| Amount | 2026 | 2027 | Change | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HSA contribution limit — self-only coverage §223(b)(2)(A), per individual |
$4,400 | $4,500 | +$100 | +2.27% |
| HSA contribution limit — family coverage §223(b)(2)(B), per individual |
$8,750 | $9,000 | +$250 | +2.86% |
| Additional contribution, age 55+ §223(b)(3)(B) — set in statute, never indexed |
$1,000 | $1,000 | — | 0.00%STATUTORY |
| HDHP minimum annual deductible — self-only §223(c)(2)(A)(i), plan qualification floor |
$1,700 | $1,750 | +$50 | +2.94% |
| HDHP minimum annual deductible — family §223(c)(2)(A)(i), plan qualification floor |
$3,400 | $3,500 | +$100 | +2.94% |
| HDHP maximum out-of-pocket — self-only §223(c)(2)(A)(ii), excludes premiums |
$8,500 | $8,700 | +$200 | +2.35% |
| HDHP maximum out-of-pocket — family §223(c)(2)(A)(ii), excludes premiums |
$17,000 | $17,400 | +$400 | +2.35% |
| Excepted-benefit HRA, newly available per plan year §54.9831-1(c)(3)(viii), set by the same revenue procedure |
$2,200 | $2,250 | +$50 | +2.27% |
The one number that never moves. Six of the seven HSA amounts are indexed and six of them rose. The age-55 addition did not, and it will not: §223(b)(3)(B) sets it at $1,000 "in the case of taxable years beginning after 2008" with no indexing clause attached. It has been $1,000 since 2009. Against 2009 prices, $1,000 in 2027 buys roughly what $660 bought then — the catch-up is the only part of the HSA that inflation is allowed to erode, and it erodes every year by construction.
A married couple can hold more than $9,000. The $9,000 family limit is a single shared ceiling across both spouses' HSAs — splitting it between two accounts does not double it. The catch-up is different: it is per individual, and §223(b)(3) attaches it to the account owner, so each spouse's $1,000 must be contributed to an HSA in that spouse's own name. A couple who are both 55 or over in 2027 can put away $11,000, but only if they hold two accounts. One joint-feeling account plus one spouse's name on it caps them at $10,000.
What you can contribute for 2027
The annual limit is not a single allowance you either get or lose — §223(b)(1) builds it a month at a time. Enter the months you will actually be an eligible individual and this applies the statutory proration to the official 2027 amounts above.
"Eligible individual" is tested on the first day of each month (§223(c)(1)(A)): you need HDHP coverage that day, no disqualifying other coverage, no Medicare entitlement, and no one may claim you as a dependent. A month you are covered from the 2nd onward is not an eligible month.
§223(b)(1)–(2), the rule the calculator applies:
"The amount allowable as a deduction… shall be the aggregate amount paid in cash during such taxable year… to a health savings account… The monthly limitation for any month is 1/12 of… the amount in effect under paragraph (2)."
So the annual limit is (annual amount ÷ 12) × eligible months, and the age-55 addition prorates the same way — it is not an all-or-nothing bonus. IRS Publication 969 works exactly this arithmetic in its own example: someone who turned 65 and enrolled in Medicare in July with self-only coverage and a catch-up entitlement gets $5,300 × 6 ÷ 12 = $2,650, six twelfths of the annual limit including the $1,000.
The Medicare rule that ends HSA contributions six months before you notice
This is the single most expensive thing to get wrong on an HSA, and it lands on exactly the people who did everything else right: someone who kept working past 65, kept an HDHP, kept funding the account, and then filed for Social Security or Medicare at 66 or 67.
Step one — Medicare zeroes the limit, it does not reduce it. §223(b)(7) is blunt: the monthly limitation "shall be zero for the first month such individual is entitled to benefits under title XVIII" and every month after. Publication 969 puts the same rule in one sentence: "Beginning with the first month you are enrolled in Medicare, your contribution limit is zero." Note the word is entitled, not using. Part A costs most people nothing in premiums and pays nothing while an employer plan is primary, so it is easy to treat enrolment as harmless. For HSA purposes it is terminal.
Put the two together and the arithmetic is unforgiving. File in July 2027 at age 67 and your Part A entitlement begins January 2027. Every 2027 month is a zero-limit month. Every dollar you contributed for 2027 — including the payroll deductions that ran cleanly through June — is an excess contribution, retroactively, on a limit that was correct when you made it and became wrong afterwards.
The retroactivity is capped in one direction that matters: it never reaches back before your first month of eligibility, so it cannot cross the month you turned 65.
What it costs and how to avoid it. Excess contributions are includible in income and carry a 6 percent excise tax under §4973 for each year they stay in the account, so the exposure compounds until you withdraw them with their earnings. The avoidance is calendar arithmetic, not tax planning: stop HSA contributions six full months before the month you intend to file for Social Security or Medicare. If you are aiming at a July filing, your last eligible contribution month is December of the prior year. Employer payroll contributions count too, so the instruction has to reach HR, not just your own transfer.
Two adjacent decisions move with it. Deferring Medicare past 65 to keep contributing only works if your employer plan qualifies — and a late Part B decision has its own permanent price, set out on our Medicare late-enrolment penalty page. And the year you finally enrol, the premium you pay is set by the MAGI you reported two years earlier, which is where the 2027 IRMAA brackets and, if that year was distorted by a one-off, the IRMAA appeal route come in.
The years between the last HSA contribution and the first Medicare premium are the same years most people convert. Getting the size of those conversions right against the surcharge lines is the hard part. Model IRMAA-aware conversion sizing with the Roth Conversion Planner ($49) →
The last-month rule, and the thirteen months it costs you
There is a legitimate way to contribute a full year's limit on a partial year of eligibility, and it is worth knowing precisely because the calculator above will not do it for you.
§223(b)(8) says that if you are an eligible individual on the first day of the last month of your tax year — 1 December 2027 for almost everyone — you are "treated as having been an eligible individual during each of the months in such taxable year." Start an HDHP on 1 November 2027 and you may still contribute the whole $4,500 or $9,000, plus the whole $1,000 if you are 55 or over.
The price is the testing period, and it is thirteen months long, not twelve. It begins with the last month of the tax year and ends on the last day of the twelfth month following — for a 2027 contribution, 1 December 2027 through 31 December 2028. You must remain an eligible individual for all of it. Break it in any month and the amount you could only contribute because of the rule comes back into your gross income for the year you broke it, plus an additional tax of 10 percent on that amount.
For readers in their sixties this is where the two halves of this page collide. Using the last-month rule in 2027 and then filing for Medicare at any point in 2028 breaks the testing period, because Medicare entitlement ends your eligible-individual status. The rule is a loan against thirteen months of continued eligibility, and Medicare is the most common reason that eligibility does not last. The failure is not caught by the calculator above — it is a decision about 2028 made in 2027.
New for 2027: direct primary care arrangements no longer disqualify you
The same revenue procedure carries a change that is easy to miss because it is not a limit. §71308 of Public Law 119-21 (4 July 2025) added §223(c)(1)(E): a direct primary care service arrangement is no longer treated as a health plan for the purpose that used to disqualify it, provided the aggregate monthly fees do not exceed $150 for an individual, or $300 where the arrangement covers more than one person. Rev. Proc. 2026-24 confirms both figures for 2027.
Before this, paying a monthly retainer to a direct primary care practice was second coverage, and second coverage meant no HSA contributions at all. From months beginning after 31 December 2025 it does not, inside those caps. The $150 and $300 amounts start being adjusted for inflation for months beginning after 31 December 2026, and 2027 is the first year they could have moved — they did not.
Common questions
- What is the HSA contribution limit for 2027?
- For calendar year 2027 the annual contribution limit is $4,500 for an individual with self-only high deductible health plan coverage and $9,000 for an individual with family coverage. Both figures are official: the IRS set them in Rev. Proc. 2026-24, published in May 2026. They are $100 and $250 above the 2026 amounts of $4,400 and $8,750.
- Are the 2027 HSA limits official or projected?
- Official. Unlike most 2027 tax figures, HSA amounts are published early: §223(g) indexes them on a window ending 31 March and requires the IRS to publish them by 1 June of the preceding year. Rev. Proc. 2026-24 did that in May 2026. Every 2027 amount on this page is transcribed from that document, not projected.
- What is the HSA catch-up contribution for 2027?
- $1,000, for an individual who is age 55 or older by the end of the tax year. This amount is set directly in the statute at §223(b)(3)(B) as $1,000 for 2009 and every year after, and it is not indexed for inflation. It has been $1,000 for eighteen years and will be $1,000 in 2027. Each spouse's catch-up must go into that spouse's own HSA, so a couple who are both 55 or older need two accounts to use both.
- What counts as a high deductible health plan in 2027?
- For 2027 a plan qualifies if its annual deductible is at least $1,750 for self-only coverage or $3,500 for family coverage, and its annual out-of-pocket expenses — deductibles, co-payments and other amounts, but not premiums — do not exceed $8,700 for self-only coverage or $17,400 for family coverage. Those are the Rev. Proc. 2026-24 figures under §223(c)(2)(A).
- Can I contribute to an HSA after I enrol in Medicare?
- No. §223(b)(7) sets your monthly contribution limit to zero for the first month you are entitled to Medicare and every month after it. Publication 969 states it plainly: beginning with the first month you are enrolled in Medicare, your contribution limit is zero. The limit for the earlier months of that year still stands, so a mid-year enrolment prorates rather than wiping out the whole year.
- How does the Medicare six-month lookback affect HSA contributions?
- If you claim Medicare Part A or Social Security after age 65, Part A entitlement is backdated. Under 42 CFR §406.6(d)(4) an application filed more than six months after your first month of eligibility is retroactive to the sixth month before the month of filing. Those backdated months are months you were entitled to Medicare, so §223(b)(7) makes your HSA limit zero for them — retroactively. Contributions already made for those months become excess contributions. Anyone working past 65 with an HSA should stop contributing six months before the month they intend to file.
- What is the HSA last-month rule and its testing period?
- If you are an eligible individual on the first day of the last month of your tax year — 1 December for most people — §223(b)(8) lets you be treated as eligible for every month of that year and contribute the full annual limit. The cost is a testing period: you must remain an eligible individual through the last day of the twelfth month following, so 1 December 2027 through 31 December 2028. Fail it and the contributions you could only make because of the rule come back into income, plus an additional tax of 10 percent on that amount.